ScreenBeam Actiontec SBWD100A01 / SBWD100B Pro Wireless Display Receiver for WiDi Laptops/ Miracast Devices

We bought two of these, one for our family room, one for our main viewing room, to use with a new laptop with (Intel) Widi capabilities. The devices configured simply via Windows 8.1 and are trivial to connect and disconnect wirelessly. So far we've watched a bunch of different streaming video sources like online TV (for example, today's Rose Bowl parade from a Pasadena TV station (we're in Virginia)!), websites catering to streaming dramas, and more; each source worked flawlessly complete with good sound and, in most cases, full 1080p video (depends on source). The devices themselves are dinky - like 8 cm on a side and about 1.5 cm tall.They essentially do exactly what we want them to do - allow us to stream video/audio to our large-screen TVs at full resolution from a laptop without using a cable. We've also been using them simply to "project" the laptop display while my wife has been practicing math problems online - that way I can look at the LARGE TV screen and answer questions she has without having to try to look over her shoulder at the laptop's display.So what's WRONG with them? Two things noticed so far: (1) there is no off switch so once they're plugged in, they're on. This seems like a poor feature but one I can ignore since the devices are always ready to connect that way. And (2), the devices are susceptible to microwave-frequency radiation (2.4GHz?). When affected by that the video/audio becomes very intermittent and pretty much unviewable. Our ONLY experience with this problem, however, was when we turned on the microwave oven in the kitchen (30-ish feet away and through a couple walls); as soon as the oven turned off, the video/audio became rock solid again. When I did an internet search for this problem I see it is VERY common across numerous devices such as routers etc so this is NOT an ActionTec-specific problem. The wattage of our microwave (1200W at full power) undoubtedly contributed to the appearance of the problem (our oven doesn't "leak", it's just that microwave ovens are a LOT more powerful than wireless routers). Anyway, this problem, too, is not enough to bother us to distraction - now that we know WHY the behavior occurs, we know how to avoid it so it has become an insignificant problem that quite probably is unavoidable with ANY Widi receiver.These receivers have already proven their worth to us. I'm sure as we discover more online content we'll be using them even more.

Please note that I originally purchased a Netgear Push2TV device and returned it due to video and audio freeze-ups, connection problems, and severe lag. I decided to try the Actiontec ScreenBeam Pro in its place, and it was MUCH better!Please note that I am writing this review of the Actiontec after only two days of use of this product. I tested this device for screen mirroring on three devices. In each case, I tested its ability to mirror streaming video from the web, streaming MP4 video that was stored locally on the device, mirroring photos that were local on the device, and, on the Nexus 7 and the Note 2, mirroring the device's desktop using moving live wallpapers.Nexus 7 (2013 running 4.4 Kit Kat)All of the tests passed quite well. The connection was made easily without incident. I did observe some freezes (glitches, not total freezes) on the live wallpaper after mirroring it for an hour or so. Disconnecting and re-connecting resolved the issue. Videos played without freezes or significant lag. The unit does get quite warm.Samsung Galaxy Note 2 phone (T-Mobile, running 4.1.2 Jelly Bean)All of the tests passed without incident. No freezes or significant lag was noted. For this device, you access the ScreenBeam Pro through Samsung AllShare Cast (Settings...More Settings...AllShare Cast).Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro convertible laptop (running Windows 8.1)All tests passed without incident. This uses the WiDi (Intel Wireless Display) function.I highly recommend this product. Since I have been mirroring my ipad 3 with an Apple TV, I wanted a device that would work just as well at screen mirroring for Android so that I could phase out my last Apple products in favor of Android. Based on my first two days of use with the Actiontec ScreenBeam Pro, I believe that I have found what I needed.

Este aparato lo use en una dell vostro 3450 Windows 7 y una HP Envy Windows 8.1. El detalle con este producto es que tienes que tener el software WIDI instalado en la computadora. Algunas computadoras ya lo traen instalado y si lo traen de todos modos tienes que descargar de internet un wizard donde verifica si cuentas con los drivers necesarios para que funcione. En general en ambas se pudo usar el dispositivo y lo detectaron. Sin embargo solo en la HP funcionó adecuadamente sin mayores problemas y no se tuvo que instalar nada adicional. En cambio en la laptop Vostro 3450 se tuvo que instalar un grupo de drivers supuestamente necesarios y eso me afectó algo en los gráficos, se veían rayas y por lo tanto desinstalé los drivers del widi. Esto fue debido a la versión de Windows 7 donde hay que instalar más archivos de actualización.. Con Windows 8.1 no se batalla tanto. La versión del widi debe ser 3.5 en adelante. Es deseable instalar el último firmware en el actiontec para que todo esté actualizado vía un flash usb insertado en la parte posterior del aparato. En el instructivo se da el link de internet que te guía en los pasos a seguir donde descargas el firmware en el flash y lo insertas en el actiontec. No funciona con dispositivos Apple. Parece que solo con android y la función miracast lo cual no pude probar debido a que no tengo esos aparatos. Incluye su cable HDMI. En general buen producto si cuentas con la laptop adecuada. En mi caso solo valió la pena en una HP Envy con Windows 8.1 que tengo donde se puede hacer espejo de lo que se está viendo en la laptop en una pantalla de televisión con entrada HDMI. Esto sería por que no tuve que instalar nada adicional y no se veían rayas o algo que indicara que estuviera afectando la función de la tarjeta de gráficos de la computadora. En la dell vostro 3450 Windows 7 no me funcionó como quería.

This is a well-made piece of electronics which does exactly what it is supposed to do. Actiontec has done a good job making this little box. When everything is working as expected, it displays a decent (if slightly lossy-compressed) picture. I found it quite serviceable for playing simple PC games and viewing web pages, projected on my big screen TV. I was able to change the resolution of the screen and it worked as expected, and it did all of the necessary handshaking on the HDMI connection to make the TV set display a proper picture. I could do a multi-monitor configuration with an extended desktop, and it worked just like I'd docked it to a wired monitor. It all looked good for what I needed it to do. Also, two members of my household with newer Android phones were able to connect to it and display their phone screens on the TV, including screen rotation. Worked great, and this thing is really inexpensive to boot. I remember when WiDi first came out, the adapters were in the hundreds, which kept me from buying one. Now that this thing is out, it's cheap enough to have been a no-brainer.(Note: I haven't tried playing movies on it, because I have other ways of displaying movies on the TV set. I don't know whether the lossy data compression would make movies look bad or not. I know it looked OK for showing my computer desktop and simple games which didn't require a lot of full-screen updates that would stress the lossy data compression.)So if it works so great, then why the two-star review?The problem is, this little box relies upon software that Actiontec didn't write. Your computer needs to be able to connect to the thing, and that requires driver software and connection utility software (in this case written by Intel), and that's where I ran into trouble. When I first got the Actiontec, and my laptop couldn't connect to it, I contacted, in order:- Actiontek support (phone, India).- Actiontek advanced support (phone, USA).- Intel support (phone).- Computer manufacturer support (Sony, online).Each one, in turn, was unable to solve my problem and pointed the support finger at the next company in the chain. Each support person was not knowledgeable about the problem at all, even when, in one case, I was escalated to advanced support after being online with the first-level support for over an hour. Each support tech just parroted all of the things in the online user guides and troubleshooting guides, stuff I had already tried. Things like re-installing display drivers and network drivers which I had already updated to the latest versions.One particularly maddening moment was when the Actiontec advanced support tech tried to tell me that my brand-new Core i7 1.8ghz laptop did not have a fast enough CPU for WiDi, and was therefore not supported. Despite the fact that the laptop manufacturer advertises this particular model as being WiDi-ready, the product specs for the Actiontec do not list any CPU limitations at all, and that the Intel WiDi web site specifically lists my Core i7 processor as being supported for WiDi. I was really upset that the tech tried to blow me off with that BS line.So the moral of the story is, when you buy a device which requires someone else's software to work, expect to get the finger pointing circle. Nothing has changed, that's always been the case in the computer industry. With this particular device, the software problems were particularly maddening. I was eventually able to get it to work, but it took days of research and experimentation, and the support calls were no help at all.I was eventually able to get it working. In hopes that this will help someone else, here was my problem:The instructions for the thing say, "In Windows 8.1, open the Charms Bar, press Display, press Project, then select "Connect to a wireless projector". The problem is that I never got that option. Windows kept showing me a different list of options in the charms bar. The screen it showed me was the screen that lets me choose between the different ways to project to an already-connected projector (Local display only, extend, duplicate, external display only). I never got the option to connect to the thing in the first place.I could go into Devices And Printers, and tell it to Add Device, and it would search for and successfully find the Actiontek device on the wireless network, and the Actiontek would prompt me with a PIN number for connecting, and I would enter that PIN into the computer, and then it would start the connection handshaking process and.... fail with an error message. Every time.Since I was getting a screen that made it look like I was already connected to an external display, then I thought maybe it was because I currently had drivers on the laptop installed for a USB3 docking station with external monitors. So I uninstalled that docking station software. No change. Still the same problems.I ran the Intel WiDi update utility which makes sure the computer has all the correct drivers. It always says "No updates needed, your computer is ready for WiDi. Open the charms bar and select Display, Project,..." ARGH.I tried installing the Intel connection utility for WiDi, and it actually refused to install it, saying that the computer didn't support the utility. Though I triple checked all the system requirements and my computer met every one of them. And of course Intel's own WiDi update utility had already said I should be good to go. That same intel connection utility installed fine on a second PC from a different manufacturer, also running Windows 8.1. I was able to connect to the Actiontec device with that other computer, using that Intel connection utility. So I knew the Actiontec worked correctly and it was just the bad Intel software on my main PC that was sending me in circles.I googled online, and after a lot of digging, found one set of forum posts that looked promising. People were suggesting that WiDi needed the Microsoft Virtual Miniport driver, which wasn't there on my system. To get it to appear, other forum searches said that I needed to reinstall the Microsoft Hosted Network feature, using commands such as "netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow", and "netsh wlan start hosted network". Those commands also did not fix the problem, did not make the Virtual Miniport driver appear, and in the process managed to set up my laptop to be sharing its internet connection via WiFi, something I didn't want it to be doing in the first place. So no luck there.I tried a whole bunch of other things, so many things I don't remember them all now. Anything I could think of that might affect the display driver or the network driver, including full uninstalls and re-installs of the display driver and network drivers. Nothing worked.At the very end, in desperation, I tried uninstalling VMWare Workstation and Oracle VirtualBox. These were two virtualization systems which allowed me to run an older Windows instance on the computer. I had been experimenting with them because certain older pieces of software won't run on my Windows 8.1 computer, and virtualization systems are one way to work around that problem. I knew that these VM systems installed special network drivers and display drivers which allowed them to piggyback onto your existing system's hardware. I thought perhaps they might have been interfering.It worked after that. I can now connect to the Actiontec and use it as intended. The Charms Bar looks correct now, shows me the expected options. I'm not certain that the VMWare/Virtualbox thing was the real reason or not, since I had been trying so many other different things at the same time. But if you're in the same boat and happen to have either of those VM programs installed, that's something worth trying. I didn't see anywhere else online which suggested this as an option. And of course, it was not suggested to me by any of the tech support people that I contacted. If I can get a hold of Actiontek advanced support again, I'll let them know about it.*UPDATE*: I ended up reformatting my PC from scratch recently, and sure enough, the WiDi stopped working when I installed Oracle VirtualBox, and it started working again when I uninstalled VirtualBox. Again, Actiontek and Intel had no clue about this.

Ok, I gotta say I was skeptical about this. But after reading an article written on tomsguide.com about the best mirrorcast receivers for 2014 I figured I would give it a try. This was sold by Amazon, so I knew I was covered if it stunk. So the size is not the smallest of the bunch, certainly not as small as the chromecast, I also own, but still fits in the palm of your hand. Sucks that the AC adapter is not a universal 5V USB. Instead it's a standard transformer with round plug. Besides that, this thing was literally plug and play. I own an LG G3 and after plugging it into my HDMI 4 input on the side of my tv I simply clicked the mirrocast button on my android device and hit search and bam! It showed up the first time. Clicked on it and bam again! Just worked. No lag, no configuration, no firmware update, nothing. Just worked the first time. This thing is going to be awesome when I travel to hotel rooms or anywhere else that has an hdmi input TV. It's also not the cheapest of the, lot but save yourself some headache and get the one that just works. You can also download an android app on the play store that lets you configure the ScreenBeam and rename it to your liking.